First 24-Hour Children’s Library Soon Open to Public in Beijing

Need some distraction for your children when waiting to see a doctor? There’s a much better choice than idiotic cellphone games.

A 24-hour hospital library, the first of its kind in China, will be situated in Beijing Children’s Hospital East Branch, with nearly 2,000 books catering for children and parents.

The hospital will design and decorate a 20-square-meter borrowing area on the first floor, and book corners on its second, third, fourth and fifth floors.

Mainly sponsored by Chaoyang District Library, the facilities will be integrated with the public library network of Beijing, free to all yikatong card holders both for reading and borrowing books. People can apply for a yikatong readers’ card through WeChat. The library will also be equipped with self-service machines for borrowing and returning books.

“Books borrowed from the hospital library can be returned to other libraries within the public library network, and vice versa”, said Xie Gang, deputy chief librarian of Chaoyang District Library.

Meanwhile, the hospital pledged to donate RMB 1 from each patient to support the library to buy books and host reading-related promotion activities.